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The Solaris Operating Environment |
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The SolarisTM 8 Operating Environment is the established OS leader for availability, scalability, and security in the Internet age. In Solaris 8 software, Sun delivers a trustworthy, universal platform to meet the needs of .com businesses -- from small startups to large Fortune 1000 enterprises. It's no surprise that the Solaris Operating Environment is the leading UNIX® environment today. SolarisTM software was originally designed with the Internet in mind. TCP/IP, the central Internet protocol, has been at the core of Solaris networking for more than 15 years. Through its time-tested design -- a small, stable kernel, modular and extensible components, and well-defined interfaces -- Solaris software delivers rock-solid stability and predictability for business-critical applications. And the Solaris 8 Operating Environment provides complete compatibility with prior versions, so you can be confident that your current applications will continue to run. Solaris Is .Com Available Internet businesses operate around the clock and are linked globally to employees, partners, customers, and suppliers. In the .com environment, downtime doesn't just affect the company -- it affects the entire supply chain, from the largest to the smallest link. This means that the need for near-zero system downtime is no longer limited to financial institutions and telephone companies. It is an absolute requirement for just about everyone in the .com era. Your customers, suppliers, and partners expect your business to be online 7x24x365. The Solaris Operating Environment is acknowledged by the industry to be the premier reliable UNIX environment. By minimizing planned and unplanned downtime, reducing administration errors, and simplifying troubleshooting, it keeps your mission-critical applications available, and ensures high-speed, reliable access to your data. And because the Solaris Operating Environment is based on a smaller, more stable kernel and has better load balancing across multiple processors than other operating systems, it dramatically decreases your enterprise's exposure to system crashes. With features like Solaris Live Upgrade, Hot Diagnostics, UNIX File System Logging, and Remote Console, the Solaris 8 Operating Environment is built to maximize uptime. As with previous Solaris versions, the modular construction of the Solaris 8 Operating Environment allows installation of new feature updates as they become available, while at the same time assuring that your applications continue to run. Updates can be installed on a separate partition from the currently running operating environment, and when installation is complete, a simple reboot enables the Solaris 8 Operating Environment to take control. Because human error still accounts for a great portion of system downtime, the Solaris 8 Operating Environment continues to improve ease of use and system management. Using Solaris Web Start WizardsTM software at installation time ensures trouble-free configuration of new systems. The SolarisTM Print Manager simplifies the management of both local and remote printers by centralizing printer information. And role-based access control (RBAC) enables system administrators to provide limited administrative capabilities to other users -- without exposing the system's root password. In addition, security features like support for IPSec, smart cards, and Kerberos v5 reduce the chance of downtime due to malicious behavior. The Solaris 8 Operating Environment also supports a number of software components that increase overall availability:
Solaris is .Com Scalable Have you ever wondered what will happen when your enterprise outgrows its present system? Some companies want you to move everything to a larger computer that can run a bigger operating system. Sun, on the other hand, took a different approach and created an operating environment that simply runs faster -- and runs the same applications faster -- when you put it on large computers. This is called scalability, and it defines how well and how cost-effectively a vendor will be able to meet your needs both today and tomorrow. At Sun, network computing is at the heart of everything we do and everything we are. We understand the .com world and its unpredictable workloads. That's why the Solaris Operating Environment brings data center levels of predictability to today's .com enterprises. We know that businesses must rapidly adapt to the growth that success brings, particularly success on the Internet. While other operating systems vendors talk about scaling someday, Solaris software delivers it now: from one to 64 processors; on 32-bit and 64-bit systems; in two-, four-, and soon eight-node clusters. Scalability is built into the Solaris Operating Environment. Solaris leads most operating environments in scaling with a multithreading design that delivers much faster performance for key enterprise applications and core system functions. The Solaris Operating Environment scales almost linearly within a single machine, so it easily handles heavy traffic, huge data sets, and enormously compute-intensive problems. Designed for multiprocessing and 64-bit capable, Solaris software delivers a consistent software environment, from smaller departmental servers to massive, clustered 64-CPU servers. Solaris is .Com Trustworthy As the networked world becomes more intricately interwoven, and the dependencies between vendors, suppliers, and consumers become more complex, businesses need reliable systems from vendors they can trust. Software must be secure, private, and proven. Vendors must be dependable, committed to supporting legacy systems and data center levels of predictability, and capable of delivering agile systems for the .com era. In the unpredictable .com world, the workload on a given system will vary widely by demand -- you never really know when a huge load spike might occur. Other operating systems often crash or are non-responsive under overload conditions. By controlling the way severe loads are handled, computers equipped with Solaris software are more predictable in the unpredictable .com world, making them ideal for meeting Internet business needs. Sun systems and Solaris software provide a platform that businesses can rely on. The Solaris 8 Operating Environment tightens an already secure software environment with increased support for security protocols and new technologies including IPSec, Kerberos v5, smart cards, and role-based access controls. With Sun, you can count on a smooth transition for your applications to the Solaris 8 Operating Environment. Existing applications that adhere to the Solaris application binary interface (ABI) will run unmodified with Solaris 8 software -- on both SPARCTM and Intel Architecture platforms. In addition, Sun is providing developers with an easy-to-use AppCert testing tool to verify Solaris application binaries and report on any potential incompatibilities. Solaris is .Com Universal When businesses begin operating on the Internet, they quickly find that they are not the only ones out there. For companies like Sun, that means our systems have to work together with a variety of computing devices -- from PDAs and PCs to workstations and mainframes. Sun's commitment to open industry standards and support for vendor-specific, de facto standards is well known. With the Solaris 8 Operating Environment, Sun pushes universality to a higher level, delivering technologies that can connect billions of users and devices over the Internet. The Solaris 8 Operating Environment is universal. It provides enterprises with support for a global set of languages -- all within a single product. Using Solaris, enterprises have the option of supporting multiple language environments concurrently on a server or desktop system with just a single install, while retaining the ability to conveniently add and remove any language environment at any time. Solaris software also provides extensive support for 37 different languages and 123 locales. The Solaris Operating Environment also provides flexibility to work with many other operating systems. SolarisTM PC NetLink software delivers native Windows NT network services, including integration with directory, authentication, and file and print services. Linux applications on the Intel platform can also be run unmodified using lxrun, a free utility shipped with Solaris software. Java Technology The Solaris Operating Environment leads the industry as the premier, mission-critical platform for deploying JavaTM technology-based applications. Solaris 8 software improves Java server-side performance and stability for the large applications data centers rely on, while retaining the agility a .com business needs to succeed. Java technology is tightly integrated into the operating environment, and can leverage its multithreaded capabilities to deliver the scalability, performance, and stability needed for enterprise applications. Ease of Use The Solaris 8 Operating Environment includes features that make it even easier to use. For example, Solaris Web Start WizardsTM is a powerful, wizard-based installer for Solaris and bundled software that works in a Web browser. You can link directly to Sun before and during the installation process to get the latest information and download additional software. The InstallShield wizard interface is familiar to experienced Windows NT administrators, which simplifies their transition to the Solaris environment. And role-based access control allows allocation of limited administrative capabilities without exposing the system's root password; inexperienced administrators can perform value-added tasks without endangering the integrity of the enterprise. The Solaris Operating Environment includes a number of enhancements to the Common Desktop Environment (CDE). Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) support synchronizes data from PDA devices with the CDE calendar, mail, memo, and address book. And CDE now features streaming video using MPEG1, MPEG2, Quicktime, and AVI formats as well as MIDI audio using the JavaTM Media Framework. Other new features include: Smart card support for user authentication; NetscapeTM application launcher; Hot-Key editor; and the StarOfficeTM 5.1 office productivity suite. Networking Enhancements With more than 15 years of support for networking-related protocols, the Solaris 8 Operating Environment offers one of the most mature networking stacks in the industry. By supporting the latest networking protocols and standards, Solaris 8 software is the ideal platform for the development of agile, dependable, leading-edge network applications. Leveraging Sun's leadership in various standards bodies and advocacy of open standards, Solaris 8 software introduces several new networking features. With Service Location Protocol (SLP) -- a new Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard -- administrators can create a seamless, service-driven network without frequent administrative intervention for configuration or other client-side changes. The Solaris 8 Operating Environment is one of the first major commercial software packages to support IPv6, the new IETF standard that allows the Internet to scale and deliver on its full potential. The Solaris 8 Operating Environment also brings traditional, data center-class features to the networking arena like bandwidth management and network multipathing, enhancing the ability to deliver quality of service that meets the requirements of business-critical environments. On the Internet, the protocol of choice is TCP/IP. In fact, most .com applications are written using it or assume it is there. In the Solaris 8 Operating Environment, finding and fixing problems is now much easier thanks to a new TCP logging mechanism that communicates every time a connection is terminated. Solaris software takes advantage of native LDAP protocols and services to integrate clients and applications, complementing existing NIS and NIS+ services. Standards
System Requirements
Source: Sun Microsystems
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